Upgrade Question

wrote:
The two biggest increases will be in maintenance and insurance. I don't
have much Comanche experience but on our Arrow the extra cost for
maintenance of the gear and constant speed prop probably averages around
$600/year (much of which is for prop overhaul).

My club operates 3 Archers, 2 Arrows, and 2 Bonanzas. We're currently
charging $65/hr for the Archers and $75/hr for the 180 HP Arrow. Fuel
burn is essentially identical for both models, so the extra $10/hr is
accounted for by increased maintenance costs.

A buck or two is a higher per-hour engine reserve rate (IO-360 vs.
O-360). The rest is some mix of more complex systems (prop and gear)
which any Arrow owner will see, and generally higher repair costs
because our Arrow is older than any of our Archers. The latter is a
local effect, but offhand I don't know how much to attribute to that.

The Arrow probably costs more to insure, but that's not reflected in the
hourly rates, since it's a constant cost per month.

We adjust our rates every year so we just break even. We've got many
years, and many 10's of 1000's of hours of operating experience to go
on. Thus, I feel pretty good saying that a 180 HP Arrow should probably
cost about $5-10 more per hour to run than an Archer of similar age and
condition.

If e.drucker puts 100 hrs/year on his Arrow, his $600 figure works out
to $6/hr. I suspect he's overlooked that fact that his fuel injected
engine is more costly to overhaul, so he's lost sight of another couple
bucks/hr that he really should be accruing (at least on paper) against
an eventual overhaul or replacement. Overall, his figures and my
figures are in pretty good agreement.

On 17-Sep-2004, Roy Smith wrote:

If e.drucker puts 100 hrs/year on his Arrow, his $600 figure works out
to $6/hr. I suspect he's overlooked that fact that his fuel injected
engine is more costly to overhaul, so he's lost sight of another couple
bucks/hr that he really should be accruing (at least on paper) against
an eventual overhaul or replacement. Overall, his figures and my
figures are in pretty good agreement.


We put an average of about 175 hrs/yr on the Arrow, so the extra maintenance
for RG and CS prop probably works out to under $4/hr. The $2/hr higher
figure for engine overhaul reserve is about right. However, with the price
of fuel so high (unless you burn mogas) the higher efficiency of the
injected engine probably almost makes this a wash.

Take care that in a more complex airplane it's maintenance and insurance
that are substantially higher. If you don't fly many hours per year, these
will really bite you.

-Elliott Drucker